Symbolic Revenge in Holocaust Child Survivors Nancy Isserman
D 7 SYMBOLIC REVENGE IN HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVORS Nancy Isserman Introduction The attitudes of Holocaust survivors toward their persecutors present an intriguing subject for exploration. One component of the attitudes expressed is revenge. The concept of revenge is pervasive throughout literature, religious and legal writings, and history. Revenge is also considered a subset of political intolerance. Research on intolerance has been linked to age, education, and religious affiliation, among other demographic factors.1 Political intolerance is associated with low education, older age, rural residence, and fundamentalist reli- gious affiliation.2 My recent qualitative research found a connection between family-of-origin relationships and intolerance.3 Survivors who evidenced positive relationships with their family-of-origin caregivers also demonstrated tolerant attitudes toward the perpetrators of the genocide; conversely, survivors who had troubled relationships with their family-of-origin caregivers expressed intolerance toward the perpetrators.4 The Oxford Dictionaries online define revenge as both concrete and symbolic. The concrete definition incorporates physical behavior: “The action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.”5 Examples of concrete revenge are found in Holocaust survivor narratives during the later years of the war and immediately afterward. The most famous example of concrete revenge is Abba Kovner, who believed that “the Jews must seek revenge, answering a crime that could not be answered.”6 In the spring of 1945 he declared, “Yes, the War is over, but no, not for the Germans; it is time for the Germans to suffer; the Germans, who killed the Jews, must now pay with their own lives,”7 and quoted Psalm 94 in which God is called on to take revenge on the enemies of Israel.
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